


It‘s never too late to start anew

by thebaddestshapeshifter



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Character Study, Nostalgia, Was sad so i wrote this, might qualify as, proofread exactly once by me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 19:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30026874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebaddestshapeshifter/pseuds/thebaddestshapeshifter
Summary: They were never supposed to meet.
Relationships: Jason Grace & Piper McLean & Leo Valdez, Piper McLean & Leo Valdez
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	It‘s never too late to start anew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intelcore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intelcore/gifts).



> I wrote this at 11pm and i proofread this exactly once at 1am and the only purpose of this is giving myself peace so i can stop thinking about them in the middle of the night so i can sleep
> 
> This contains exactly one line of spoken text and it doesn’t count

They were never supposed to meet. 

Leo growed up all over the country. He used to have a home in Texas, he lived there with his gentle mother and the seemingly neverending sun and the happiness that used to accompany him during the first few years of his life.  
Happiness wasn’t the only thing following him, it turns out. 

He was supposed grow up in a small town with a small community and a big smile. He turned out alright in the end, the journey could have been kinder (it could have been gentler, but with his mother gone there wasn’t much gentleness around anymore).  
Still, everything was good. 

Piper doesn’t really remember much about her early childhood. She supposes she was born sometime and then she lived in her fathers house (watch the wording: she did not live with her father, he was there too seldom to be called present. The house was never a real home).  
She remembers only snippets and feelings. How she tried to get her fathers attention by making him proud, by mimicking him and doing exactly as he asked her to. By behaving well in front of the babysitter so she might get praised for her efforts.  
She stopped doing these things when she realized she didnt know her father well enough to mimick him and the babysitter never stayed around after getting paid.  
So Piper changed her methods; If she couldn’t get him to look at her for more than a few minutes then she would make sure he wouldn’t see her for days at a time. She craved to look him in the eyes after having been away for days, after he sent out the police to go look for her only for them to find her in a stolen car, just sitting and admiring the view, looking at the stars when the sun went away.  
She wanted to look her father (not the man who raised her, for all she knew she raised herself) in the eyes and see in her what he was responsible for. She wants to say “ Hey Dad, look what you missed out on. This is no ones fault but yours and you cant do anything to change it”. She isn’t sure whether he understands what she tells him, he never reacts in any way except throwing even more money at her.  
She is drowning in the money her father showers her in while starving for any sign that she is of any significance to him, that she is more than a good way to spend money and pretend to have a life outside his job. 

Even then he will someday grow bored of her (as if her life had any impact on his at all).

He sends her to Wilderness school so he doesn‘t have to deal with her anymore.

It was inevitable, really. 

„We were always supposed to meet“. That's what the two of them tell each other, once they have grown close, once they knew each other well enough to break the rules to sit together in a dark room in the middle of the night, knowing well enough that getting caught would end up in a visit to the principal's office and so much detention they would never see the end of it. They don‘t care. They lay next to each other on Pipers bed in her single room and they look at the blank ceiling pretending its the sky. 

That‘s pretty much all they do these days. 

They Dream.

It only takes a few weeks for the two of them to grow close like they were destined for each other (the number of weeks depending on which perspective you put it in. Piper had been there for 3 weeks when Leo showed up).  
Turns out she had only been waiting for the perfect person to be her partner in crime. 

Their first meeting goes like this:  
Piper accidentaly causes a fistfight (not really. Looking back on it, it had been completely intentional. She was dying in that school and if she had to continue living a single week like that she might not ever be able to get out of that endless abyss of boredom and repression and „child raising tactics“ that were so morally outrageous she would be able to find a good number of philosophers to completely wreck the principal). The abyss was pulling her down and it didn‘t seem to be intent on letting her go.  
So she started a fire.

The fire started in her very soul the moment she was about to punch that guy into oblivion. When a crowd hat gathered around the two of them, ready to cheer on whatever person they wanted to see getting knocked out as revenge a few hours later.  
She could have taken him. She knows that. Leo knows that now. 

Sweet Leo, bless his heart, had shown up from nowhere and kicked the guy so hard and so sudden that the guy went down without preamble. The crowd grew louder and they were excited and they were ready to see another fight. 

Children are cruel. 

Especially if you just lock them away in the middle of the desert, thinking their problems will go away if you put them in a school full of teachers who hate their jobs and other children who have the exact same ambitions as them. 

She doesn‘t really remember much past that point. Only her knight in dented armor standing in the hallway looking so damn pleased with himself that she could cry. 

Only that fire in her heart that only seems to grow everytime she so much as looks at him.  
It‘s a feeling so much more than love. She loves him in a way that matters more than anything and she knows he does too because while the crowd is still there and hiding them from teachers she walks up to him.  
She doesn‘t bother pulling her punch, after all physical contact is a love language.

The shock is visible on his face and he‘s outraged and they throw insults at each other like their lives depend on it and then the teachers come and she grabs his hand and they run. 

They talk a lot. They spend a lot of time together. They abandon everything that isn‘t the other and it‘s like it was never any other way.  
Of course there are bad days. Days when Piper just wants to curl up in her bed and cry her eyes out and punch someone so hard she doesn‘t feel the anger anymore. Days when Leo just jokes and jokes and jokes and never stops and she has to pull him into a hug and hold him so near that he knows she will never let him go. 

Its good. They aren‘t fine but they are happy and they have each other and that‘s all that matters. 

Things get complicated after that. 

They continue their routine of enraging teachers and skipping classes and spending hours staring at the ceiling and talking about the future (they never talk about the past or the present. The past doesn‘t matter and the present is nothing but small moments that will be forgotten in no time at all). The two of them have plans to pick the stars from the night sky, to gather them in bouquets and just look at them until all their worries and problems are gone and then move on to another sky to do the exact same. 

But they don‘t remember that. They don‘t remember the freezing winter they spent together, just the two of them and the seemingly endless amount of snow falling from the sky until there is nothing to be seen but a white plane of nothingness reaching as long as they can see.  
It‘s the first christmas they spent together and they don‘t remember it.

Instead they have memories of yet another troubled boy being shoved off into the school. They have memories of mocking him in the quiet dark of the night, only once breaking their habit of leaving the present to rot and be forgotten and talking about him until dawn arrives. 

They don‘t know how it happens. They don‘t remember why Jason is now joining them during lunch. Why the three of them spend most nights sneaking out of the building to lay on the cold ground, huddled next to each other and seeking each others warmth so they can spend a few more hours gazing at the stars. 

Some nights they don‘t talk. They just exist unter the sky and look into the endless abyss and the abyss leaves them alone. Its very peaceful. They might finally be content.  
Other nights they talk like it‘s their last night on this earth and they do it just like Leo and Piper used to do it when they were alone (it turns out they always were alone. Jason was never really with them and they don‘t know if they ever really spent any time looking at the stars or if they just continued looking at a gray ceiling pretending that everything will be alright). 

Jason fits in perfectly. They don‘t know much about his past. They don‘t know much about anyones life before Them but it doesn‘t matter. 

There‘s not much else that they remember. That‘s the only thing connecting Piper to the person she used to be.  
They know what they did. They know how they got into trouble and how they were split up so many times and how they always got back together again.  
They know how hard Jason tried to gain a place as teachers pet and how he tried to stay out of trouble, only ever joining Piper and Leo on their schenanigans.  
Little did he know that the teachers were allergic to all kinds of pets. 

But that‘s the thing, isn‘t it. Jason doesn‘t actually know anything about that time except for what was told him. That would be the Gods. The Gods who have been following them their entire lives and who could have helped them just fine at any time. They don‘t hate the gods. They can‘t. They are the Gods‘ servants and they are to listen and execute orders and die someday just to be reborn and repeat and repeat and repeat until they may have an endless life in Death.  
But they are merely humans. They don‘t want to have eternal life, they want to be happy without having to fight for every single step.  
They can‘t hate the Gods. But they can dream about the stars and the times Before, when there was nothing but Leo and Piper and sometimes even Jason when they think it‘s been long enough since their last cry. 

But that‘s the thing. Leo and Piper have memories of their time spent together with Jason. There‘s nothing more. They have memories and they know what happened but when they think back they see themselves from a stranger‘s perspective. They can‘t recall the smell of the grass they laid in or the soft glow of the stars or the burning fire in their chests connecting them all. They look at their lives and they don‘t feel anything but sadness at their inability to remember how they felt back then. 

It gets better. When they accept their fate and return from their first quest. Its a slow and painful process but eventually they are able to look at each other with happiness without trying to remember the past. 

The past doesn‘t matter and the future can‘t stop them. The only thing that matters is the present and they are living it to its fullest and more. 

They were never meant to meet, but Gods exist and they can‘t control the outcome of their lives, but nothing can stop them from looking at the night sky and telling stories they once heard or sharing rumors that never seem to cease in the new place they call home.


End file.
